It is not enough from a nuclear policy council to erase years of errors and ideological choices. While the Elysée organized this Monday, March 17, a strategic point on Monday, March 17, making it possible to move forward on the major files of the revival of the atom – financing of future EPRs, supply of uranium and research on innovative reactors including the fast neutron models -, the former president of the National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer, drew, the same day, the alarm bell during a colloquium organized in the Senate Adapes.
“Our electrical system is starting to be threatened,” warned the president of nuclear heritage and climate (PNC), an association whose objective is to defend the atom sector. This time, the problem does not come, as in 2022, from corrosion under constraint, but from the too rapid rise in renewable energies.
As it is announced, the next multi -year energy programming (PPE), which fixes, energy by energy, the main orientations of French politics, enhance the development objectives for renewable energies: a factor 5 for solar, 2 for earthly wind and 37 for wind in the sea[[ ! “Si l’on met en œuvre ce scénario, à l’échéance 2035, l’énergie nucléaire ne servira qu’à boucher les trous et à faire du suivi de charge [NDLR : baisser volontairement et temporairement la puissance fournie par un réacteur]”, alerts the former UMP deputy.
Europe indeed applies the mechanism of the “Merit Order” according to which renewable energies are called primarily on the electricity network. As long as they are not too developed, coexistence with nuclear poses little difficulties. On the other hand, if the share of wind and solar climbs too much, two problems arise. First of all, modulating nuclear power decreases the profitability of this type of installation. The Court of Auditors is already concerned about the low return on investment of future EPRs due to the risk of skidding of construction costs. For the record, the Flamanville site was to last five years and cost 3.3 billion euros. He finally spread over seventeen years for an invoice exceeding 19 billion.
Intrust wet finger policy
The modulation is also suspected of damaging the reactors in the long term, even if there is a lack of studies to demonstrate it. “There should have been a parliamentary debate on these subjects. A law on energy strategy in 2023 should be voted but because of political instability, we have had nothing of all this. The government now intends to use a decree when the latter are precisely intended to decline what is written in the laws”, deplores Bernard Accoyer, who adds: “without parliamentary debate, there is no institution. Enter to try to deepen these questions “.
The decree on the PPE is therefore the fruit of the only work of the administration, which is not immune to political influences, as shown in 2023, the parliamentary commission on the energy independence of France. What to do to avoid the energy sinking that is looming? First, postpone the adoption of the decree on the PPE. “There is no emergency. The worrying decline in energy consumption in France gives us margin,” warns Bernard Accoyer. Then, France will not be able to save impact studies on its energy choices.
The law of 2015, still active, states that the share of nuclear power in the electric mix must fall to 50 %. However, since the parliamentary survey of 2023, we know that this figure stems from purely ideological choice. What would be the impact of such a strategy on the network, production, consumer bills? “The place of science in public decision is essential. We can no longer continue to advance with a wet finger under the pressure of lobbies and speculators of all kinds,” concludes Bernard Accoyer.
This Monday, the government showed that it still followed the course set in Belfort in 2022 by the President of the Republic. However, at the end of the nuclear policy council, nothing filtered on the respective place of each energy in the electric mix. Proof that in terms of planning, we still have a few holes in the racket.
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